Stranger Steve stared
by Starstruck
Summary: A story about Steve coping after the events of the Outsiders, and the strange characters he encounters along the way
1. Default Chapter

Hi. Argghhhh- been too busy with school. I haven't even had time to read the stories here- it been driving me nuts because I know the stories are great here. Stupid freaking teachers… I'm sorry; I'll continue my other story after I get over writer's block. I have no ideas for it– because I SUCK! I wrote this story when I had some free time, I wrote it on a whim. A really BAD story. It's all melodramatic crap. I probably won't continue it.  
  
  
  
  
  
"We are here today to mourn the passing… of Jonathan Cade." The minister declares in a holy solemn voice. He is holy and solemn- quiet and graceful and forgiving. He is smug and knowing. If he could -he would stick his tongue out and sneer "Nyah nyah!"  
  
Yes. We are here today to mourn the passing of Johnny Cade. That is why Steve Randle is here. He is here to mourn the passing of Johnny Cade- The Hero. Yeah, he mourns the passing of the Hero- not that he has to, but for the hell of it he'll mourn the passing! Jonathan Cade is the Hero. Our Hero. Steve's hero. That carried your children out of the church for you. Why didn't you do it you lazy bastards? Was your back broken? Did you have burns all over you? Jonathan Cade is an inspiration. The press loves it. "Fuck you" Steve mutters under his sour breath. The press can quote Steve on that.  
  
Steve watches you. He watches as you cry into your tissues, holding your brats that Johnny and Ponyboy rescued. Why are you crying huh? HUH? You haven't lost a thing. But you have gained a hero.  
  
He's sorry. Steve should thank you because you of made Johnny a hero. He will be praised. He will be remembered for a year or two. Really, you are too kind  
  
Oh yes, Steve mourns the passing all right! He mourns a whole lot of passing.  
  
His ribs hurt. He cannot laugh. It hurts. It works. He does not want to laugh.  
  
He wants to take the large crucifix from the church and smash the pretty stained windows by ramming the Jesus's wooden head against them. He wants strip off his tight formal clothes and chase the nuns around in his underwear. And he wants to open the lacquered coffin- and pick Johnny out of it and carry him in his arms like a star would carry a starlet in a B- movie. Johnny should have not been in that burning church. He should not be in this church ethier. When the gang leaves, Johnny will be by himself in the tiny dark little coffin, and then he'll cry- like the time they found him bloody and broken in the vacant lot and there will be no one to hold his bony shoulders. Johnny is only 16.  
  
Steve's ribs hurt.  
  
Steve still remembers the funeral.  
  
Dallas had no funeral. He had his body cremated and stored in some storehouse, and then has his own neat little file in a police cabinet, which it will stay forever. He deserved no funeral for being so stupid Steve thinks. The more he thought about Dallas's death, the less it makes sense. Dallas was smart- Steve refuses to believe he would make friends with a stupid person. A smart person would not suddenly pull a gun out while the fucking POLICE were around!  
  
But was Dallas ever really his friend?  
  
Dallas shook when he died. Like a flopping fish. Flop. Flop. Flop. Gasp. Leaps!  
  
His fish knees collapsed and blood sprayed. He shook and fell, blood poured. He landed and was still, blood shone. The blood looked gold in the streetlight. It looked sliver in moonlight.  
  
Steve vomited when Dallas died. It hurt his ribs. He is not the vomiting sort. But he could not control it. He vomited and the bile and pungent sour milk smell make his eyes water. He could see Dallas lying in his blood taunting him .  
  
"Wussy boy! Wussy boy! You a little squeamish! Huh? Huh?!" He could hear Dallas's voice echo in his ears.  
  
He could not say anything back for once. Why couldn't he?! Why? Oh why?! He is smart, and witty. He let Dallas taunt him and he bends over, his ribs aching, staring at his colorful half digested dinner and waits for Sodapop to help him.  
  
But Sodapop is busy helping Ponyboy who has just fainted , a fainting brother which out ranks vomiting best friend Sodapop supposes. Why didn't Dallas taunt Ponyboy? Ponyboy was the one who fainted. He was the true wussy boy. Not that it was Ponyboy's fault- he was hurt. But nethier was it his fault for vomiting.  
  
He is angry with Dallas. He is angry with Johnny Cade- it is hard to stay angry with him but Steve can manage- he's experienced you see. Yessiree, the world owes him big time. He interrupts your regular scheduled living to bring you, his fabulous broken ribs, his new and improved temper, and his minty fresh world .His pain is good, is original- his pain is entertainment worthy. Rejoice in his pain. He'll vomit for you.  
  
Johnny was dead. Dallas was dead. He hates that minister. He hates his father. He loves Soda Pop . He loves cars. He likes his friends (except Ponyboy whom he tolerates to the best to his ability- he's a kid.)  
  
Only 5 remained.  
  
Only 5 more to go.  
  
It was all the little boy's fault  
  
Steve life was an adventure film where the hero dies in the first scene.  
  
But after he met the boy, Steve life had become nothing but static.  
  
Steve sometimes visits Johnny's grave once every 3 months because it gave him a false sense of loyalty because he knows that they had left him alone in the tiny box and he can never be forgiven no matter how many times he visited. He goes alone. Soda will cry. Darryl works too much to visit. With Two-Bit, it is too awkward because there is nothing funny. He doesn't want to bring Ponyboy with him.  
  
Johnny 's grave is next to a big fat ruddy hedge. His grave is small, minimal, and pathetic. The tombstone is a small smooth stone that reads "Jonathan Cade. RIP" It does not have the date he was born or the dare he died. It has no flowers. It is growing weeds on it. It is a leper in a city of beautiful graves with big marble tombstones with angels and crosses. But the day when he met the little boy, he visited Johnny. Yes, Johnny was still dead. He had a beer in his left jacket pocket. He was smoking camels. His pain made it necessary to smoke.  
  
There was a new grave besides Johnny, the ugly hedge was mowed down and replaced with an uglier grave. Someone by the name of Gary Mex was buried besides Johnny. Space taking bastard.  
  
Steve's pain increases. His pain makes him regular. His pain makes him more important then us. He allows him to be bitter and resentful of us. Agree or we don't understand and there us something horribly wrong with us.  
  
Steve's life is a Shakespeare tragedy- with grease.  
  
A young boy around 8 or 9 meandered to the new grave next to Johnny. As he walked, he walked like a scarecrow, awkwardly, one large stride after another. He looked like a scarecrow, his bare arms and legs long and sickly. He had a slightly protruding stomach pressing against the fabric of a long black large T-shirt stained with brown sauce and oil. His shirt nearly reached to his knees. He had dark wild brown hair. His knobby legs seemed to be held together by his black jeans that were too short for him. His nose was large and beakish. He has moderate sized lonely looking eyes that were dark and in the distance looked like 2 crevices in his face. His lips were curled in severe contempt, his upper lip thin and his lower lip much larger. He looked pale in the light, the only color on his face were from the shadows and his eyes. He wore no shoes.  
  
He knelt down and started clawing and upturning the dirt recklessly so that it looked like a gopher had raided.  
  
He turned his head to look at Steve then smiled pleasantly.  
  
"Howdy." The boy said cheerfully, his lips thinned as he smiled. His forehead creased and his cheeks strained. It looks painful for him to smile . Dirt crumbled from his fingertips. Then he went back to his task of upturning the dirt.  
  
"What the hell are you doing?"  
  
"Sorry. I can't talk to ya."  
  
"And why the hell not?" Steve demanded.  
  
"Cause you're a stranger. "  
  
A stranger?! HIM?!  
  
"I don't care what the hell you're doing. " Stranger Steve sneers.  
  
There is silence.  
  
"Well, I'm breakin my daddy's grave. He was a drunk no good bastard. I'm glad he's dead." The little boy said this very casually, and his eyes were beady and knowing. The look that politicians have.  
  
Stranger Steve stared.  
  
" My daddy was stupid. He got drunk and he wanted to cross the road and a car crashed into him. " The boy adds, in a matter of fact way.  
  
Stranger Steve stares more.  
  
"Wanna help me?" The boy lifts a handful of dirt.  
  
"No." Stranger Steve wants to leave.  
  
" Fine then." The little boy said glumly. His eyes shifted downwards and his hand fell to his lap. Dirt crumbs scattered on his jeans. For a second he sounded like Johnny, for a split second he looked like Johnny, and for a microsecond, he was Johnny.  
  
Johnny used to stared at Steve wide eyed- watching him, almost fearfully. He didn't understand why until Johnny died. Johnny watched him fearfully- because he feared Steve. Steve understood why. His temper. Johnny hated people to get mad at him, and he hated yelling. He saw Steve as a time bomb. And because of this, they weren't as close as they could have been. Damn you temper! Oh damn you to hell!  
  
Steve's temper makes him angry.  
  
"Don't you have some shoes kid?" He says this more gently. Kids are so damned stupid.  
  
"Yup. I have mighty good shoes. My mamma bought em for me."  
  
Kids were always saying stupid things like that.  
  
"Then why don't you wear your goddamn shoes then?"  
  
" I don't want too 'cause I hear with the soles of my feet."  
  
This kid was especially stupid.  
  
"You do?" Steve says sarcastically.  
  
" I like to hear the worms eat up his smelly ass." Enoch shouts proudly, ignorant of the sarcasm dripping from Steve's lips. He increases his volume on "ass", like a toddler shouting "Mommy! Look what I did!"  
  
Steve chuckles even through the comment disturbed him even more then Enoch beady little eyes. Enoch was proud to show he can cuss, and can make Steve laugh. He puffs his chest out a little more and smiles broadly. Steve chuckles because of Enoch's proud shouting, and smug little stupid face. Steve wants to smack him hard because of how damned stupid he looks. If he had a little brother like that, he would lock him in a closet and bind him with duct tape, kick his toys around his room until they broke, tease him until he cried and then make him eat his own snot, and then-  
  
"Who's grave is that?" Enoch points.  
  
"A friend of mine."Stranger Steve answers – he does not mean to, but he sub- consciously would rather have a company of a stupid smug little kid, then his goddamn temper.  
  
Enoch stopped digging. The boy frowned.  
  
"I'm sorry that my daddy was buried near your friend." He said, he sounded truly sorry.  
  
Steve blinked. He was surprised. Every time he had told somebody that Johnny was dead they said they were sorry. But why? And finally someone had told him why.  
  
Perspiration oozed from the back of Steve's neck. Enoch had broken into his skin.  
  
"My name's Enoch. I've lived here for 2 months. My daddy died a month ago. My mamma made me come to Tulsa. She killed my daddy. If she hadn't made us move here- he wouldn't of died. " The boy blinked back, his voice is steady, emotionless. His eyes are squinting and becoming more beady.  
  
Perspiration oozed from Steve's temples. The boy eyes see his pain, and he's trying to compete whose pain is greater. Enoch has made a deeper incision in his flesh. The boy wants to hurt him, to worry him, to disturb him, to crawl under his skin like a insect in jungles he heard about and lay it's eggs and have his warty of- spring feed of his supple young flesh.  
  
Steve's life is a horror movie.  
  
"Nice meeting you Enoch." Steve lies. 


	2. A lousy little walk

He stands up. He briskly walks past Enoch.  
  
Enoch stares and then shakily picks himself up. He takes his grubby hands and smears them on his already dirty shirt. Then he begins to follow Steve. Not too close, at least 10 paces behind. Enoch walks hurriedly, taking small steps, and pretending to glance causally at the scenery as if he is taking a lousy little walk. Steve knows this. He walks faster- it hurts his ribs. Enoch walks faster. He slows down to ease his ribs. Enoch slows down.  
  
Enoch is evil and stupid. Enoch is the next Hitler. Enoch latched on to Steve's pain and tried to beat it. He is a tricky little leech. Steve decides one day he will push Enoch off a cliff and save millions.  
  
"Stop following me damnit." Steve calls behind his shoulder.  
  
"What your favorite baseball team? I like the-"  
  
"Shut up and go away."  
  
" -the Yankees." Enoch finishes - he has been told many things- when at first you don't succeed, try, and try again.  
  
He had been told so many things, he could not remember them. He was slower; clumsier- he is an inferior being, a crying shame, a clod who lives in a world of losers and open coffin funerals and crying of alley cats.  
  
Enoch has been told he has no future.  
  
He looks behind himself to make sure he has a past.  
  
Steve walks quicker.  
  
Enoch runs, he catches up and is right beside Steve. He is stubborn and persistent. He will make someone like him, respect him. He is not a kid- he is not like a kid, so he must be a man. He is a man. Men become friends with other men.  
  
He jogs to keep up with Steve.  
  
"Hey, are ya hungry? I am. Wanna come to my house? My mamma makes the best ham sandwiches."  
  
Johnny's mother made any ham sandwiches. Johnny's mother had never made anything good besides Johnny.  
  
"Goodbye." Steve grits.  
  
"I goin' this way too." Enoch says sullenly.  
  
"Get the hell out of here." Steve walks faster.  
  
"My mamma made me come here." Enoch says darkly, his eyes are sinister, his pale face is filling with color, his teeth is gritting. It is not his fault. It never his fault.  
  
In this second, millions upon millions were working and wasting their lives, to get money and to get things that Johnny would never have and Johnny couldn't care less because Johnny was dead.  
  
Dallas had never cared in the first place.  
  
He vomited before the fuzz. Oh why couldn't they had left for a moment and let him vomit with dignity? Or why- could he of raised his head a little and spewed at them?  
  
Goddamn Two-Bit, whining about his impressive switchblades, holding that greasy warm beer bottle as if he was holding a greasy warm woman, smoke entailing out of his nostrils.  
  
" "I don't care about your mamma." Steve stops; he turns around and slams his hand onto Enoch shoulder hard. Enoch's small body wavers and wobbles. Steve will keep him still, because he is bigger and better.  
  
"Go away or I'll shove this cigarette-" Steve takes the cigarette out of his mouth for the full effect- he blows a stream of hot smoke in Enoch's face. Enoch does not move. Threatening Enoch Mex is almost pleasurable."up your goddamned nose."  
  
"It was so damned hard to get the damned thing- I spent hours walkin around – that store man wasn't a no regular schmuck. He eyed me like a godawful hawk- followed me around the store-" Two Bit's voice was low and toneless, his thumb rubbing the glass of the bottle gently making large smears on the surface.  
  
It was Two Bit's fault for giving it to Dallas. It is your fault if something is wrong- if something pains you. As for him, he blames his father, he blames religion, and he blames those tight lipped waitresses who call him a "sonuvbitch" under their sour breath when he jokingly flirt with them.  
  
Enoch looks at Steve hand. It is warm. It is comforting. He is the first human being in Tulsa to volunteering touch him. And Steve does not like him. Nobody likes him. Tears fill his eyes.  
  
" I'm Enoch. Not kid. My mamma made me come here an' Daddy's dead an  
  
the boys don't talk to me at school and when they do- them eyes are full of hate. I'm not a kid, I'm not a- " Enoch shouts, his lips flapping, his mouth wide and gapping. The tears in his eyes increase. He is not a kid. Believe him! Noone else will.  
  
"Listen kid- I don't give a shit. Not about your daddy. Not about your mamma. Not about the boys at school." Steve voice is banal and isolated. His voice cracks. Oh, this is very wrong.  
  
Enoch has tears in his eyes; his face is contorted and pale.  
  
It is wrong.  
  
Steve asks himself: WWJD?  
  
What would Johnny do?  
  
Steve takes his hand off Enoch's shoulder. Steve digs in his pockets.  
  
"You like candy right? How bout I give you some candy and you got away? " Steve's suddenly feels generous and righteous - his voice is low and soft.  
  
He pulls out a sticky half-melted toffee from his pocket- a present from Soda.  
  
"Here ya go. Here's your candy." Steve sighs as he quickly and grudgingly pries Enoch's wiry hand open and puts it in his sweaty grubby plump little palm.  
  
Enoch stares at the melted piece of candy lying pathetically in his palm. The candy scalds him, it mocks him. It calls him what the boys call him at school- not only that, it sticks to his palm. It makes his cheeks flush with humiliation, and his swollen eyes burn. Men do not give each other candy.  
  
Enoch bites his lip, he hopes it mortally wounds him and he will taste his own bitter blood. He feels his soles vibrate and quiver from the noise. It is loud graceful supersonic noise that echoes in every beat of bitter blood that flows through his ears. He will not listen with his feet anymore. He will make them deaf.  
  
He heard the story of the girl with shoes that danced, and when she put them on she danced all day and she couldn't stop. She could not take the shoes off. She had to cut her feet off.  
  
He does not want to cut his feet off.  
  
Like ice thrown down his neck, a sinister and menacing block seeped down his neck- down his spine leaving a slimly trail behind it. Enoch is no longer desperate to be touched, to be liked, to be wanted. He is desperate to hurt, to hate, and destroy. He is a man and men destroy each other.  
  
Steve grows impatient. The kid was not grateful. The little bastard should be grateful-it is from Soda. Soda is a goddamn tiger.  
  
"Would ya like a quarter tank or a full tank? ROAR!" Soda snarls.  
  
"You're very goddamn welcome" The stranger sneers.  
  
Enoch smiles, his smile is crooked and twisted, and his scrawny arms by his side, he is standing up straight.  
  
Steve stares- he feels his fingertips become numb and his face tingles. Enoch is feeding on him and tearing his muscles from his bones and ripping them to strongly shreds.  
  
"You think you're better than me don't ya?" Enoch smiles as he wipes his nose and wipes his eyes clumsily.  
  
Steve is better then you. Steve does not have to prove anything to you Enoch Mex. He will not sit while you eat him alive, and crack apart his already cracked ribs. Steve turns around.  
  
"You think you're better then me. But you're not. I can hear the worms and they're waiting for ya, y'hear me?! I can hear em, and you can't! I'm better then you!"  
  
And Stranger Steve walks away. He will out walk those worms 


	3. worms & helen are out to get you

Steve walks. He enters. He will forget the whole ordeal with Enoch Mex. Just like he forgot many things. You say it. He will conviently forget it.  
  
Steve sits on a stool that is right in front of the counter in the diner. HE is a regular here. The stool is too small, and too short and it tilts. Upon seeing him, Helen- a waitress/preparer of various drinks who works behind the counter in this diner, she cries out:  
  
" I don't know why you blue collar two bit trash come to dis place. This place for good respectable folk! Them folks having to dine with the likes of you. You goddamn hoods, never keep your nose clean. Never keeping your noses clean. " She preaches, her fat tongue flapping and her eyes rolling in indignation.  
  
An ice-cream soda beautiful." Steve deepens his voice. He enjoys this. It is amusing to flirt with the ugliest waitress in the diner. She is uglier then him so she deserves it. But even through Soc's are richer then him, Steve Randle does not deserve what they give him.  
  
One day, when he was an old man, the Soc's would come to Steve and beg for forgiveness with rivers of snot coming down their noses and weeping.  
  
"Oh please. Oh please." They would weep.  
  
Then Steve would take a sledgehammer and smash their heads open like a juicy watermelon. Then he would run them over and over with his future Mustang Acapulco Blue. Then Steve would then pour gasoline on them and light a match and then let them burn and scream. Afterwards, their charred remains would beg for forgiveness.  
  
Then Steve would say:  
  
"Yes, I forgive you."  
  
Then he would probably die.  
  
Helen was a bitter salty white woman in her late thirties who secretly drinks shots of whisky while she works. She is fat- her blue and white uniform searching around her large women hips and her women bust and her unnaturally thick arms. Her face was like a pancake without syrup, large doughy, round and greasy but not a bit of sweetness in it. Her nose was flat and wide as if crushed. Her lips are thin, white and tight. Her eyes, which were the color of pecans, are small, narrow and darting. Her cheeks are doughy, red and swollen, which if you looked closely enough you could see tiny red veins burrowing through her skin like thousands of angry locusts. She had fine wrinkles at the corner of her eyes and around her mouth. Her hair stringy, messy was washed out blonde- like used dishwater.  
  
Helen makes a gargle in her flabby throat and turns her big behind on Steve Randle. She takes a bottle of cola and screws the bottle cap open with fury causing her to have red painful marks on her chapped calloused thick hands. She pours the Pepsi into a curvy woman shaped glass. She goes to the tub of stiff frozen vanilla ice cream and with great effort with the scooper grabs a thick ball of the stuff. The very smell and sight of ice cream makes her seethe with malice.  
  
She wants to grab Steve and shove scoopful after scoopful down his greedy hoarse throat, it's sweetness running down his chin and him choking on the thick sweet substance and his tongue crying for any favor that is not sweet. Steve Randle is so low, that he is the slime that others trod upon. He is a waste of air and a waste of effort of his parent's part and a waste of cola and ice cream and sugar.  
  
She recklessly dumps the ice cream into the Pepsi, letting sticky Pepsi dribble down her fat fingers and then very carefully she hides her face and the glass and then spits her cigarette whisky favored spit into the ice- cream soda.  
  
She spits on ice cream and she spits on the American Dream. The goddamn American Dream, and it drowned underneath the river of melted sweet fat swirls of ice-cream and cheese and beautiful people who could walk on ice- cream and cheese while the rest of them went to hell- served with a buffet of lies that she could no longer take a bite from. It didn't matter what you were, as long as you paid your taxes and acted like the piece of shit you were.  
  
"15 cents." She says tonelessly. She feels her lips curve gently as she places it in front of him.  
  
"Worth more than you baby doll." Steve snickers as he places down some sliver colored change on the dirty counter. He wishes Soda or Two Bits was here to hear his cleverness. Steve Randle requires an audience. He has to share himself, because he is too good to hog himself.  
  
Steve remembered Soda's mothers cooking. She would bake hot buttery starchy biscuits, smothered with hot opaque brown gravy which sometimes had lumps of god knows what in it. She would take the juices of her freshly cooked meat or chicken broth and then boil her vegetables in it. Her vegetables would become sweet and moist as fat that melted between your lips and left a resonant warm taste in your mouth. With asparagus, she would cook it until it was tender and then put a small dish of mayonnaise so you could dip it in. And with broccoli, she would smother melted shredded cheese all over it. In the summers, bitter refreshing lemon ice tea. In the winter, rich thick muggy bitter coffee.  
  
And he takes a sip. It is sweet and good. It dulls Enoch and his damn worms.  
  
"Not bad baby doll. Not bad at all."  
  
Helen smiles. 


	4. baybeee

Really long chapter, sry. Kinda sucky too. Heh. ( Been so busy. Science teacher is a ass.  
  
…  
  
Is it just me or when I read certain stories I think of certain songs? Maybe the stories remind me of the song, or vice versa. Do u know what I mean? Maybe it's just me.  
  
  
  
He sips his ice-cream soda when suddenly Evie enters.  
  
Steve sees his through the crowd.  
  
"Evie!" He calls. He smiles.  
  
Evie sees him, her lips twitch, her forehead furrows.  
  
She sits next to him.  
  
"An ice-cream soda for her."  
  
Helen's flabby arm places a soda on the table.  
  
And then Evie and Helen's eyes meet, and they have an understanding. They know. People know. Helen smiles with her lips closed.  
  
Evie is a dark-blonde girl with a puggish nose and little pursed full lips. Her face of heart shaped and pink. Her hair was shoulder length and bobbed at the edges that curled up almost to her pink ears. She was small girl, with tiny doll like feet and hands .She often wore underwear that made her figure look like an hourglass, with notable bust, a tiny waist and large curvy hips. Her eyes were shining and dark like black glass, all eyeliner and eyelash and sparkle. Her hands twitch.  
  
" Let's get out of this dump and go somewhere real quiet and nice like bay- beeee. "Steve puts his hand on her arm.  
  
"No Steve. I wanna stay." Her neck stains forwards, her voice is anxious like a fussy mother and she shrugs his hand away.  
  
"Fine, we'll stay here. We'll stay here and drink our goddamn drinks.  
  
"Steve. I don't know why I bother with you." She smooths the wrinkles in her skirt and she swallows, the lump in her throat goes up and down, her eyes are wide and glassy.  
  
" I ain't gonna bother with you no longer. Let's break this up okay ? See other people okay? " Her voice rises and her eyes flicker and she cups her face with one hand.  
  
"What do ya mean break this up?" Stranger Steve stares. He feels as if he is being slowly consumed alive from his finger tips, and that he must rip out of his skin- better yet rip Evie out of her skin.  
  
She takes out a long pale cigarette and places it between her lips, she lights it awkwardly and quickly, her eyes looks dumb and dense batting up and down every moment. The tips glows, and she blows too much smoke between her lips. She obviously does not inhale.  
  
"You don't take me out to nice places, and we don't have fun anymore-it's awkward Steve. There are plenty of girls that- it'll be better for us both -don't you see-" She rubs her hair between her finger and holds her cigarette in the other. She stares at the cigarette and it is slowly being consumed by fire. Her words are dead, inert. They bounce off him and hit the walls and echo meaninglessly and absorb into the mildew and grease.  
  
"You're just a big heap of dough gone sour okay?" She snaps, staring Steve right in the eyes. Her eyes widen and she looks away.  
  
He tries to smile, he leans forward  
  
"I could change baby. I could be different with you. " He says this gently and smooth, his eyebrows raised and his lips curled. How suave is he!  
  
She bows her head.  
  
She puts her hands over her face.  
  
Her shoulders start to shake, gently.  
  
And tiny little whimpers escape from her body.  
  
Oh yes, Steve knows, she is crying. Crying like she hasn't cried before in front of him, because she hasn't cried before in front of him.  
  
It will look bad, it will look like he was beating her and called her a whore that makes her sob in public. "Look at that", the patrons will say " A man that makes a woman cry." They'll shake they're heads and go "TSK TSK" rolling their snuff in their mouths, smacking their lips together in unison, like a herd of cows.  
  
Steve enjoys eating steaks.  
  
She uncovers her mouth  
  
She falls forward.  
  
She burst into high shrieking wheezing laughter; she drops her cigarettes in the dish. Her eyes sparkle more then ever.  
  
He feels a swelling and tenderness in his chest, his heart is under the effect of some rare painful poison, making it grow bigger and softer until it rips through muscle and bone until it burst and the poison is released contaminating every cell of his body like a man soaked in gasoline combusts when he in contact with a tiny flame and Evie has just ignited it, laughing with tears her eyes, wheezing stagnant air that feeds the flames and he has crumbled into fine black ash that she rubs against her fingers, laughing sweetly just like the minister, the parents had taken his ash and rubbed it on their faces like makeup powder- trying to put a sad face on Johnny death, but they loved , adored him and his noble cause- they swam in it until they were tired and hopped out dripping wet and dried themselves upon it.  
  
"In the Casanova role you'd be a riot." She says giggling, she grins sloppily.  
  
He feels a shrinking in his chest; his heart is growing old and hard. He is aging right there, and is shrinking, it's muscles tighten and it gives him great unique pain- his pain and his heart shrivels into it is nothing but an brittle little crumpled shell then into nothingness, and the flames pain him and he must scream out in pain, he must do something. He mustn't die. He won't let you swim in him! HE knows how much you need to, you bastards, but he won't!  
  
Let the lack of his voice be heard!  
  
Steve grabs her face with his thumb and forefinger and squeezes Evie's rosy cheeks together. Her face distorts like a sponge being squeezed through the middle. Her face becomes more red and flushed. She gasps through her now sunken squashed face.  
  
"Youff basturd."Her voice quakes, muffled and distorted because her face is being crushed. Her eyes widen, and shine with pain tears as her hands clutch her shoulders protectively and he has made her cry. Tsk tsk tsk.  
  
Steve lets go; his hand smells sweet like perfume and tangy sweat and peach sticky makeup.  
  
Evie stares. She looks like a rabbit. Her noise twitches and her eyes glaze with fading pain tears and she sucks on her teeth, her flesh quivers. She starts to stand.  
  
Oh, he hurt his rabbit, his sweet perfume peach sticky rabbit, crushed her until she is wounded, and she will ache and glorify like Johnny and he feeds upon her ache. "I didn't mean to get rough baby. Evie- I'm sorry, Evie-" He grabs her holding his hands on her waist, her waist stiff with women's undergarments, and tighten muscles, and he wants to lay his head on her stiff lap and clutch at her skirt, that will become his skirt because she belongs to him, this little rabbit of his.  
  
"Get away the hell from me! You're a crumb bun Steve and you'll always will be. I liked you when you were smart or had a buck to spend on a girl, but now you got nether of those" She smacks his hands away, her eyes wild and her face more flushed then ever, her lips convulsing in fury.  
  
"You don't mean it." His voice is wheedling and high, he grabs her waist once more, he needs this because he has not much else, he needs to another to build himself, to make himself and Evie is a pretty sliver thread that he loves dearly that he needs in his tapestry.  
  
"I do mean it. We're through. Beat it." Her voice is strong and cold and gray, like thick wool that chokes and sticks instead of thin delicate sliver thread.  
  
"Evie, evie, what would you think if I was smart or if I had a little cash?" He holds her hands in his, and an throbbing ache begins in his muscles, and he is sweating. What is he saying?  
  
I don't wanna play no 20 questions." Her lips pressed tightly together and her skin squirms beneath him.  
  
"It's no gag. I'll have some dough on me soon. It'll be yours for anything you want. I'll deliver. You see it don't you?" he smiles weakly, the sweat collects. An empty promise that seeps into him like a drug. Oh, it's a miracle- the pain is gone!  
  
"Then I might change my mind about you. " Her face softens, her skin calms, and her lips part slightly.  
  
"Sure you will. I'm okay baby." He is well and good.  
  
She smiles shakily. 


	5. Flotation Device

Hi, I'm still alive heh. I just I wanted to bring Enoch back in to the story some how. I'm know where which direction I'm going with the story, but I'm not sure I like that direction. If any of you have any ideas, please tell me  
  
Enoch Mex is walking home. Jenna May is walking down the sidewalk some way away.  
  
Jenna May is a small lean strong scraggly long brown haired girl, with dark eyes and the complexion of ivory soap. Her face is plain, with high cheekbones, with no color except for a few large moles on her cheeks and chin.  
  
She wears a few over washed over sized plain dresses. Today she wears the orange one, which is so large, is like a flowing tent, and the neckline is so low she pulls it up every few minutes. You can see yellow brown banana colored circles of skin where bruises are healing right under her collarbones, and morose purple bruises down her arms.  
  
She is an loser like Enoch- except unlike Enoch she carries herself with her head high, and she sits with her legs wide apart, cusses and knows about where babies REALLY come from.  
  
She is admired from afar by boys and whispered about by the girls. She tells gruesome sleazy stories at recess about children falling into large menacing machinery, animals that ate people, people that ate people, witches and ghouls, excrement and people falling in it, sex, and guns.  
  
The boys and some girls would crowd around to listen to her talk, and as she told these stories her face would change and become scary and scrunched and sometimes she would wrench her eyes shut as if it hurt her to speak and speak soft as if their ear bones would shatter and then suddenly open those fierce eyes and howl out the words as if she was announcing the end of the world.  
  
She had a pretty interesting mind for a girl Enoch thought.  
  
"Jenna ! Jenna May!" He trails behind her. He runs besides her.  
  
"How are ya Jenna ?"  
  
She stares at him with disdain and disgust. Her lip is curled in sneering.  
  
He smiles goofly. A smile that has encouraged many playground hassling.  
  
"Wanna come over to my house? My mama makes good sandwiches." HE says, yes they will come to his house and have fun. They will make paper airplanes; he would listen to her stories, and then eat the sandwiches and go to each other's houses and eat ice-cream cones and become life long wonderful friends! Men can be just friends with women right?  
  
"Your mama. Your mama. I bet you'd piss inna pespi bottle if yo mama tole ya to." She laughs, her laugh is cruel and forced - it is not true, it is only to hurt him.  
  
"No I wouldn't." he says dumbly. It isn't true, it is silly. Silly Jenna. She doesn't know what she is doing. She mustn't jeopardize their unconditional life long bond!  
  
"What about yo pa?" She yelps.  
  
  
  
"He's's dead."  
  
"Probably so he don't have ta listen to ya trap anymore."  
  
Ha ha ha. She is witty, yes when they become friends she will defend him against the bullies with her wit and cruelty. Yes yes yes! And one day, when she is a full grown woman, he will defend her because when she is of that age, all the men will be taller, stronger and wittier then her and he will let her cower behind him!  
  
"He crossed the street and got a car crashed into him."  
  
"He was stupid. Just like you!" She calls grinning.  
  
"He was stupid. I'm glad he's dead. Daddy couldn't do nothin." Enoch agreed, for nobody ever told him he was a smart man, nor was his father was. He had a remarkable idea, that one day when he had a son- he would be not a smart man either. Enoch decided he would never have a son, maybe he would have a pretty daughter that would adore him, because nobody cared if a woman was smart anyway, and a quiet mild wife that would take care of the daughter and all he would have to do is make enough money. It wasn't hard making enough money, unless you were drunk all the time like Daddy because they never had enough money because he spent most of the money getting "li'ckered up" his mama said.  
  
" Let's go to my house-we'll have fun I promise." His voice is wheedling and high, this is important doesn't she see?  
  
"I feel sorry for your mama having to deal with you- it'd be better for her to give birth to a piece of steak then you. You shouldn't known better then come up to me Enoch, you know I ain't going nowhere with a shit like you. "  
  
Her gratuitous meanness bewildered him, and expelled him from his own lovely party. He has lost his voice and indelible humiliation filled moment that has ever happened is strangling him now, and Jenna's eyes are dark and empty just like him.  
  
"Yes .you will." He finds his voice, but it is quivering and trembling and naked.  
  
"Who's gonna make me? You?"  
  
"No. Not me. My friend will." HE shouts.  
  
  
  
"You ain't got no friends Enoch Mex!! " Jenna tosses her scraggly hair back.  
  
"Shut the hell up." He cries, he cannot stand it, if he doesn't hurt her he will die. Maybe he will die tomorrow. Maybe he has already died, and Jenna is a punishment for his sins, and this is heaven.  
  
Jenna stares at him.  
  
He does have a friend, somewhere. Yes he knows it, he hears it with his feet, and his friend is below the ground close to his father.  
  
" I have a friend and his name is Jonathan Cade."  
  
Jonathan Cade! Jonathan Cade he read off the tomb stone. He is his friend! His friend, his one and true friend- it doesn't matter that he is dead, but if he were alive he would like him Enoch decides. Yes, Johnathan Cade is a good name, a name of someone good and brave.  
  
" He's tall and strong and tough and he'll hit you so hard you'll feel like ya was struck by lightning. He'll run grab you and shake you so hard, ya brains will rattle in your head. He'll pull your hair out and he'll shove your own hair down your throat! " Enoch cries words sputtering freely. His heart swells up with sweetness that feels like buttermilk caressing his throat. He feels his heart pounding. Oh lord; if there is a Jonathan Cade, there is justice.  
  
"I can hear with the soles of my feet. And Jonathan Cade will break your ass in half so you can't walk and nobody will help you up, cause everyone loves Jonathan Cade and not you - cause you're so ugly. UG-LY! You'll just sit there, all alone, on the ground with that mean ol greased swirl bas- tard. "  
  
No, Jonathan Cade couldn't be friends with that greased swirl smoking bastard, not his Johnny. His Johnny was good and kind, and strong and brave. The greased swirl bastard he decided, was connected to Jonathan Cade because envied Jonathan Cadet and possibly killed him. Infact he had no doubt in his mind that that bastard killed him. HE swallows.  
  
"And the worms will get you both!" He screams, and now he had hurt Jenna he could tell! He gnawed at the very core of her, as if Jenna was some giant watermelon that he must devour to appease an unquenchable thrist.  
  
"Unless you come to my house." He says, grinning.  
  
She pushes him; he felt his legs topple over one another and dizziness like a fawn. His jaw locked together on his tongue and he felt his mouth full of stomach acid and spit and blood. He landed on his tailbone and he felt the crushing soreness that seems to resonate through his entire body like ripples in a still pond. He felt his brain hit his skull and his brain felt detached and dull shadow pain in his head and eyeballs.  
  
"You and your Johnny Cade can go eat your mama's shit sandwiches." She hisses. Then she turns and leaves.  
  
He sits there, on the sidewalk, and he begins to weep tears from his eyes, and blood and bile and salvia and evil from his mouth.  
  
  
  
AS he weeps , he feels Jonathan Cade beneath his feet and in his aching blood. He feels Jonathan Cade's presence, and he knows if he were alive Jonathan Cade would put his arm around his shoulders and let him weep until he fell asleep, and then carry him away somewhere beautiful, somewhere where he would have his mild wife, pretty daughter and become smart -somewhere very beautiful.  
  
  
  
Jonathan Cade is his flotation device in an ocean of dissatisfaction. Everything that people have tried to shove into his mind like math, and grammar and morals, they all have tried to convince him that these are flotation devices, but now he knew better. 


	6. Lonely

Hi yall. Hee hee it's been a while. (Sorry)Can't believe 400 stories already! Son of a gun. Got a lot of reading to do. Thanks to my readers and reviewers, I LOVE YOU ALL! I'm really surprised anyone actually reads my stories and/ or likes them. You all deserve a bottle of Pepsi Cola at the drive in! Ok, this little bit is about Evie and what she feels about Steve, and how Steve affects her. I didn't like how I portrayed her in the last chapter.I wanted Evie to be more real not some ditzy cute girl, so I tried eh. I don't like this chapter much ( doesn't have much flow), but I needed to start writing again. Sorry Steve fans, I didn't make him very nice at all. Not that I don't love Steve! I think Steve is a very cool but complicated character, and I will write more positive stuff about him in the NEAR future I promise. If there is any suggestions, please tell me. Ok, I guess here it goes. ***********  
  
"I wish Howard would pick me up inna car." Her friend Jeanette says sits on the chair, a cigarette hanging from her bottom lips, one leg resting on the ground one leg raised so her knee reached her neck- this position shows some of her white panties. She wears a pastel blue-collared men's nightshirt, her legs are pink, soft and hairless-they had been in bathroom for a few minutes before shaving them. She runs her fingers up and down her legs, almost inspecting for smoothness. She has a square jaw and a plump cute nose.  
  
"He doesn't have a car, even if he had the money he would never spend it. He's so tight, his asshole squeaks. "Evie's voice is slurred and whiny. Her face looks like a harmless yellow cabbage, and her eyelashes spray out like spindly spider legs. Her hair is limp and flaxen, not adhered with spray to her scalp like is normally. Her makeup is starting peel off her skin in flakes and her lips are soft. Her hips are large and get larger as she sits down and her thighs widen as they are pressed down on the bedspread. She wears a flouncy white nightgown that goes down to her mid-thigh, one that a baby might wear at a baptizing. Her legs are irritated , hairless and raw, and she has a small cut down the side of her calve with is still bleeding.  
  
They are having a sleepover. The room is littered with clothing, for the longest time they had made outfits for eachother from Jeanette's closet. The room is an complete mess with a small ignored stack of books at the foot of a low bed and several posters of teen idols on the wall. A small crooked table with littered cheap makeup and nail polish is at the corner of the room as well as a small round mirror that is smudged with lips, hands and powder.  
  
"You shouldn't talk. What about Steve? Have you ever seen him angry? It heard it's enough to stop your period in its tracks." Jeanette runs a hand through her black stringy hair and her dull grey eyes stares critically at Evie's legs.  
  
"Humph, works for me, I hate havin my period anyways." Strangely Evie strangely feels the need to defend him, knowing what she knows now.  
  
"Ha ha ha, that's no excuse to get yourself knocked up." Jeanette said humorlessy, her eyes darting back to her cigarette. She takes it out of her mouth and blows a stream of hot smoke through her nostrils.  
  
Evie stayed silent, her body was as still as a mountain, that lead up to his large eyes that shone like the headlights of a heavy truck veering forward.  
  
Steve. oh yes Steve Randle. Moody smart cocky Steve. Steve was not practically handsome at first glance, but if you looked closely at him you would see that he had appealing qualities. His eyebrows were dark and thick on his red forehead. His eyes were ferocious dark and liquidy like those of a cat, surrounded by bristly dark lashes. His nose was sharp, jutting out precariously like the edge of a cliff from his high cheeks, and toward his lips- a thin red line like in his face. His pink ears had thick healthy lobes, and were flat against the side of his head. To top it off was those fine dark greasy swirls that looked like a Japanese Edo painting of a churning sea. His chest was flat, not muscular but lean in his ribcage and soft under his bellybutton. In all, his appearance was one of storybook illustration of arrogant Spanish manidore clutching a scarlet cloth, slowly circling a devilish black bull.  
  
It would be easy to say that there was nothing more to Steve then his pride in his hair, his cockiness, his obsession with cars, wits and his bad temper for there seemed to be nothing remarkable about him. Like any a typical greaser- he arrived strutting and swiveling in his tight blue jeans and low collared T-shirts, his mouths hanging open lazily so he could let out a cuss word every breath he took and his hands smelling like Camels and crotch- typical, ridiculous, devastating. He wasn't a manidore, or a Japanese painting or a cliff. But he was a fucking boyfriend. Why Soda even associated with Steve was beyond her. Perhaps Soda looked at Steve the same way. He wasn't the cat pajamas, or the cat's meow, or even the cat's parasites. But he was a fucking best friend. But now she understood that there was more. Helen had known.  
  
A few hours ago, she tried to break up with him. She smoked to calm her nerves, tried avoiding his eyes. Why must she suffer, why must she let those ravenous dark eyes devour her body from her hips, her breasts and her lips? She felt as if he was constantly playing a hideous joke on her, by spending the smallest amount of money as possible on her, calling her "bayyy-beeee" in that mock crooning voice, sniffing her hair and neck loudly while clutching her waist so hard so she couldn't wiggle away, and when she spoke she could not help but cringe because he was just waiting till she could shut her little mouth up so he could squeeze in something smart.  
  
She laughed like a banshee at him, he said something stupid. In retaliation, he had grabbed her cheeks and squeezed them together and it hurt with a sore burning flesh pain. Her tissue of her inner cheek got wedged between her teeth and her eyes watered.  
  
She looked into Steve's face. His thick brows knitted together but his eyes were desperate and soft with almost an fierce adoration, and his mouth open carved in a downward twist of agony, rage and terror as if she was about to shoot his brains out.  
  
She saw in a magazine once when she was little maybe 6 or 7. The magazine had a advert showing a fair faced man dressed in a bright cheerful buttoned shirt and matching pants - his face pained, and terribly and oddly proud because the woman he pined for (with healthy cleavage, tiny waist, long golden hair tied up in winding beehive upon her dainty gorgeous head) was in the arms of a another handsome man because that man used another cologne.  
  
When she saw that inked -in face of the fair man, she felt her something lurch inside her for a mere second yet it was that something that seemed to be so distant and untouchable. It was an fantastic transcending ecstasy, a feeling that the world was full of terribly and oddly proud lonely people who needed a woman, and she was fortunate enough to become one. Oh, she could be so gloriously beautifully virtuously woman! She would move along at dizzying and graceful speed- charming exquisite men and women and filling them with joy with a single chaste kiss- then disappearing like a fugitive angel (and with a swish of elegant skirts) to leave them alone with their pleasure. Everywhere she would go she would bestow delicate feminine touches, a sliver vase of creamy white roses, a luscious ruby lipstick print, a seashell with a pink fleshy smooth inside, a never-ending rope of dark pearls. She wanted to cry out in a ringing , clear, melodious voice "yes forever, forever!" Perhaps that she would sustain all of world with a wide blinding smile and wearing fine little high heels with little darling bows on them. That was the single most romantic moment of her life.  
  
And that moment as she gazed in Steve's face- now she knew it would that moment would never come back. Lonely people were not terribly and oddly proud. They lived in agony, rage and terror of a plight- of an affliction they had brought upon themselves! They just never wore the right cologne! They could never be content with a kiss, never be alone in their pleasure. They're only happiness was their misery that made believe that they were righteous, that they were different- that they were better! They would stumble and mope around the earth looking for women to devour-for what good was a vase of roses when you could have hips, breasts, and lips instead? And she replied to all the lonely people in the world with her cheeks being crushed "Youff basturd."  
  
Jeanette shifted nervously. "Shit, well.what you like love him or something?" Jeanette's voice grew high, strained almost alarmed. She let out a long breath, blinked quickly and took a deep long drag off her long cigarette.  
  
Evie stared at her. Her mouth twitched. "No, infact I tried to break up with him today." "Tried?"  
  
" You know he kept grabbing my waist, his hand was all sweaty. He kept looking like he was going to collapse. He kept on calling me baby.like some fucking.fucking Elvis movie or something." Evie's voice was on the borderline of apathetic as if she was trying to recall something pathetic, something barely worth mentioning, hahahah. She had 1st asked herself why must she suffer. But now she wondered. Why did Steve suffer? Why did he want her so, when all she did on dates was crane her neck looking for Soda? Why did he have to call Darry all brawn no brains and get his jaw busted open ( she remembered a purple slack jaw on Steve that morning at school)Why did he apparently hate his father so much ? If she had known, she would of asked why he went to Johnny's grave himself or why he vomited when Dallas died.  
  
In the 2nd time that day, she began to cry. 


	7. Smackings

I had the urge to write more. I needed to write about Steve's father so here a chapter devoted to him. Erm.enjoy :) *********  
  
Lyman Randle's jaundiced sweaty ass melded to the flowered sofa, swirling his whisky in his swollen fingers in his right hand, his left content gripping a long cigarette, his cracked face contorted in torment, a pitiful prisoner-of-war martyrdom (Prometheus arising everyday, so the vulture could come ripping into his liver) expression, with layers of newspapers on his lap like a flimsy skirt.  
Decoy pheasants are made twice the size of real pheasants, so that the pheasants flying over would misjudge the distance to the ground and crash when they dived down when they imagined they would be joining their fellows. Each damn day, he would reluctantly awake next to his cold and formidable wife, feeling the sinking collapsing feeling in his lungs as if he was taking a suicidal plunge. It wasn't until he sat at his desk each morning, feebly trying to bury himself to him work, did he truly feel the self-pity and remorse of how he chronically misjudged everything in his life. After it was done, he came home to that iceberg of a woman Ann Randle; a stubborn little shit of a son Steve Randle, and comfort in the fiery bosom of Jack Daniels.  
Lyman hadn't meant to have a child. It was an accident. He could remember the fat nurse handing a red bald weeping infant to him at the hospital, he didn't want to take it, but he took it anyway. He was relieved that his wife was asleep.  
"Oh!" was all he managed to squeak and he laughed nervously to cover the tears that frolicked on the edge of his eye sockets. "I've done it," he thought. "I've made a horrible mistake" Staring into that ugly little face he felt that he could not endue any more misery, any more humiliation . The nurse beamed at him like a waitress who wanted a tip, mistaking his tears and laughter of the joy of a proud father.  
"I'll leave you alone for a while" The nurse bubbled, her face glowing in excitement. She just loved it all, the "miracle of life" she liked to say. She liked murmuring comforting nothings to women in labor, the more pain, the longer, the prettier, the younger the woman the better. She could talk to her friends all day about young pretty women having long excruciatingly painful births, how she gave them moral support and let them grab her arms, and she would finish the story with a happy flourish about the baby being the cutest thing and how the young pretty mother cried with happiness when she put it in their arms. If the woman wasn't young or pretty, or when the baby was ugly- she was satisfied with a weepy delighted father.  
  
Taking her leave, the nurse walked off with little bouncing strides and shut the door behind her with annoyingly gentleness. The room turned silent, besides Ann's slow breathing and the baby's cries. He was alone with his child, and it terrified him. At least for the nurse he felt like at least he had some direction. How dare that fat smug bitch of a nurse abandon him! What the hell was he supposed to be doing with it?  
Lyman patted its back. He tried to rock it. He tried shushing it. He hummed a jazzy tune that he improvised himself. It screamed. Lyman even kissed it's head, but it's the softness was like kissing powdered flour and he wiped his mouth to remove the queasy tingling sensation in his lips. He moved his arms because they itched. In doing so, the baby's head was left unsupported, so the baby burst into hysterical sobs and spread it's torso back away him in some desperate, almost obscene position that seemed to plead with him to leave him be, to go out and find a real man to be his father. He had spent 2 minutes with the child, but already the child was disgusted with him.  
"Now, I should die. " He whispered into the baby's wide gapping hole of a mouth. This son will be a legacy of himself. Lyman would like his son to be handsome, everyone would love this kid, and so he could get credit- but wouldn't have to go through all the trouble of raising the boy who hated him since he was dead.  
  
He kneeled over and died.  
  
But actually Ann and Lyman Randle went back home and named the baby Steve.  
17 years later, Lyman Randle is still eager to die. He knows when he dies, he will love himself- his face, his body, his manhood-because it would all no longer exist. It fascinated Lyman- even if loved his wife, was terribly handsome, adored his child, went to church, had another child (a girl with golden ringlets despite nether him or his wife were blonde), became stinking rich, moved to California and got a big yard with picket fences-his heart would one day cease to beat. The business of being good seemed oh so very futile in the end. So he lived mediocrity then he loathed himself for it, and wanted to die. Besides, he knew being good wouldn't make him any less miserable. What he wanted was to drink, be alone and go to Jazz clubs to drink and be alone. He just drank alone on the flowered sofa.  
  
He drank until he was felt that his insides had become the outside, until his spirit was drifting away somewhere like an explorer or an artist seeking for some fountain of youth, or time machine or what not. Sometimes he became a vase of roses. But then he always came back with painful clarity back to his family, his reality, himself (with a hangover no less)  
If only Steve could leave him alone! Didn't Steve realize that he was doing enough just by coming home with money , to provide for his mother the grease on his filthy head?! Steve was nearly a man now, shouldn't men understand each other? Why couldn't Steve stop making him,and treating him like a failure?  
  
At one time, he could remember drinking on the sofa with a drink to help him sleep late at night to the murmur of old timey jazz to the radio, feeling a piercing icy stare in the back of his head. He twisted his neck and see a 6-year old scrawny Steve standing bathed in darkness with a toy car in his hand, grinning to himself as if he were satisfied with an undeniable truth that nobody else could possibly accept or understand besides himself, his fierce eyes squinty full of malevolence. He was so frightened and repulsed he jolted and spilt his drink all over himself. Steve made 3 sharp coughing noises that were laughs, laughing at him for scaring him. Lyman smacked him, Steve cried and refused to stop even after yelling and more smacking, he carried a struggling snot-nosed screaming biting Steve to bed.  
The older he got, the more smackings Steve provoked with his loud gaping black hole of a mouth and less tears they were. Eventually he stopped crying altogether when he was 10. He must learn Lyman thought. I'm his goddamn father, and he's my goddamn mistake. I should be able to fix him a little! He smacked him harder. Steve did not cry. All he would was look at his feet, his eyes seething, as if he were about to make his feet combust.  
One time Lyman gotten so frustrated with his insolent little face and whole mangy appearance when Steve was about 13, he grabbed Steve by his greasy locks and took him to the kitchen sink, crushed his neck against the basin and turned the faucet on his head. He took the dishwashing soap and rubbed as hard as he could into the boy's scalp, meanwhile Steve struggling and cussing mingled with bubbled hoarse screaming for his mother.  
  
Ann ran in and grabbed her son from beneath the tap. Holding Steve shoulders tightly, she told him in a breathless voice to go take a shower. Steve ran without looking back. Ann looked at her husband, arms folded, eyes wide as if he had committed a grave sin. What was so bad he wondered? There was no commandment saying: Thou shalt not put son head under faucet and turn it on.  
Lyman still felt very foolish, his sleeves rolled up, his hairy pink gorilla arms dripping and covered with soapsuds, the shirt wet in the front, his face flushed and sweating.  
"I was just trying to wash the boy's hair." He wheezed.  
  
Ann's expression did not change. From then on, he did not smack Steve. He gave Steve money. 6 or 7 dollars quite a bargain for temporary peace. Still Steve did not admire him, Steve was not kind, nor understanding.  
He sometimes wished that Steve would marry a girl he didn't love pregnant by accident -they would have a baby boy and this boy would be mean and bad- tempered and spent every minute that he returned from home from his horrible job yelling at him for money, ratting his smart little mouth off, wearing way too tight jeans, and fixing his hair ugly just to drive him crazy.  
  
But he always took it back right afterwards. It was too horrible. 


End file.
